Where are President Obama and the First Lady? Click to see…

Press entered school at 11:58. Smell of paint now replaces with smell of wood stain.

POTUS and FLOTUS standing in a first-floor hallway, flanking two City Year ppl and staining a 5-tier shelf. Shelf looks like pinewood. They are staining a shade of medium-brown.

Order of standing: FLOTUS – boy city year person – girl city year person – POTUS. (we’re working on getting names and ages for the girl, who was blind and had glasses, and the boy, whose hair color I forgot to write down. Usually City Year ppl have finished high school – these guys looked about college age.) **NAMES: girl: Sheri Fisher, a City Year employee

Jeff Franco – Executive Director of City Year

As press comes in, POTUS made a joke about power tools, saying he heard them “How’d you guys get power tools?” he asked. The sound of power tools was audible, intermittently. Several in the pool then heard Obama say they don’t let him have power tools, but this pooled couldn’t hear it from where she was standing.

Obama, who was wearing khakis, a thin brown leather belt, brown dress shoes, what appeared to be a dark blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and clear plastic gloves, held a plastic cup of stain and talked to the girl city year volunteer as he stained. He asked her where she was from — she said PA. He asked her how she came to DC — she said she chose to come here.

FLOTUS talking to the boy, but it was too quietly to be audible. She was wearing a purple long-sleeved shirt with black print, black leggings, black mid-calf boots and clear gloves. She appeared to be making more progress in her staining on her side of the shelf. (The Obama’s each seemed to have claimed a side, with the city year ppl doing the shelf-parts in the middle.)

The did not finish by the time press were escorted out at 12:02. POTUS and FLOTUS didn’t interact with anyone but those two city year ppl and the press in the time we were in the hall.

Obama and FLOTUS and the shelf and the City Year-ers were all standing on a clear tarp taped to the floor. The set up was at an intersection of two hallways on the first floor of the school building. The building has white walls, low-ish ceilings and there was a lot of kid-art hung on the walls. Nearby was a wall of snowmen and a wall on which kids wrote about how “I can help my friends buy food when they are hungry.”